#030 - Mental models to make better decisions by Shane Parrish
Hello friends, welcome back! 🎉 (1st August, 2021)
In this podcast with Shane Parrish (The Knowledge Project, FS blog), hosted by Pete Mockaitis from How to Be Awesome at Your Job, they talked about how to improve your decision making skills, how to become better at seeing the reality.
In several of our previous newsletters, Shane is on the hosting side. It is therefore refreshing that he is the guest and to learn from his perspective. The blog that Shane writes contains a wealth of knowledge on how to create a better version of yourself and I encourage you to check it out for yourself too!
"What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities. If we do not let the world teach us, it teaches us a lesson." - Joseph Tussman
(Be open to take feedback from the reality and adjust your behaviour. Let go of your ego)
Actions
See the reality through different lenses, think from multiple people's perspective
Step outside of our system, our speciality and view the situation with a holistic view
Think deeper about the second, third consequences of your decisions
Use a decision journal
Don't make decisions when you are emotional
On mental models
See the reality through different lenses, think from multiple people's perspective
Lenses are mental models of how we understand and see the world, they shape what we think is correct and incorrect
As we grow older, from school to university to our career, we become more specialised and view the world through our specialist lens
It's hard work for the brain to admit that we're incorrect and update our view - it is therefore easier for us to think others are incorrect
By learning to see from many others' perspective, we can form a more accurate view of what's actually happening, to have different ways to see and think about problems
Step outside of your system, your speciality and view the situation with a holistic view
For example, we are sitting on our chair, we'd think we are stationary, but relative to the sun, we are moving at 67,000 mph. We don't feel it because we're in the system
Try to take a holistic view and step outside the system in order to see a more accurate picture
On decision making
Think deeper about the second, third consequences of your decisions
With the pressure of time, we often find things that solves the immediate problem, without thinking about the second, third order consequences - what problems would be created by using this "solution" 10 weeks, months, years down the line?
Example mentioned in the podcast: Having a pop-up box on the website to sign up for newsletter. First order consequence: a lot more people signed up; second order consequence: lower reader engagement as opposed to having a bit of friction to sign up, it also costs more to send out emails
Use a decision journal for decisions that have consequences (example from fs.blog)
Decision journal provides us with an accurate feedback to our decision making. It helps us to see if the outcome is due to luck (bad luck) or a good (bad) decision process, what our knowledge limits are, and helps us to improve decision making
Before making a consequential decision, write down:
What you expect to happen
Why you expect it to happen
How you feel about the situation, physically and emotionally
Sleep on your decisions and review it again in the morning, revise and catch any mistake, before acting on the decision
Write it down at the time of making decisions, as such you avoid hindsight bias, as our mind tends to distort history in order to give us a more favourable view of ourselves
Don't make decisions when you are emotional, write it down, hold it off for a while and review it when you have a calmer mind
We tend not to think clearly when we are emotional. Making decisions when emotional can also affect others negatively, that doesn't represent our true self
Book recommendations
Filters against folly - Garrett Hardin
Meditations: A New Translation - Marcus Aurelius
Question of the Week 🤔
What problems down the line may you cause when making this decision? What are the second, third order consequences?